Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare Ante Up for Location-Based Services

Facebook is expected to enable location sharing in its users' News Feeds, a
move that could automatically make the social network the dominant platform for
location-based Web services.

A March 9 report in the New York Times cited sources saying Facebook
would announce the news at its F8
developer conference, slated for April 21 and 22 in San
Francisco.

Facebook reportedly will allow users to share their location information
with friends and will offer software APIs that outside developers can use to
create their own location-based services.

Facebook did not confirm or deny the report. As a spokesperson told eWEEK,
"We are constantly experimenting with new ideas and products internally.
We don't have anything more to share at this time."

The implication is that Facebook will have more to share about location sharing,
which could be a big boost for the company as it seeks to grow beyond its current
base of more than 400 million users, 100 million of which access the site from mobile phones.

No surprise here; Facebook signaled its intent to offer location sharing in
its refreshed privacy
rules in late 2009:

"When you share your location
with others or add a location to something you post, we treat that like any
other content you post. If we offer a service that supports this type of
location sharing we will present you with an opt-in choice of whether you want
to participate."

Twitter, the Web's leading real-time microblog site, already has a
geolocation feature that has been spotted
in the wild by TechCrunch. Powered by Google Maps, the feature looks great,
but it appears Twitter quickly turned it off after it was spotted.

In another bit of location-sharing news, social location upstartFoursquare,
which lets users rack up points when they check into different places, will
offer a free analytics tool and dashboard to give business owners information
and statistics about visitors to their establishments.

The Times, which also broke this news, said businesses will be able to see who has
checked in using Foursquare, when they arrived and which times of day are more
active for certain customers. Twitter is also expected to offer such a social
business intelligence tool later in 2010.

Like these startups, Google is looking for more eyeballs on the Internet and
is heavily invested in the future of location and social networking, as well as
the money that stands to be made from displaying advertising with such
services.

However, Facebook's strong social ties, which keep users not only returning
to the site but staying on it longer, has the pole position in location-based
services.